On the signing of the Nabucco pipeline to deliver natural gas through Turkey to Europe

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I've written about it many times here over the past year and above, and the deal has finally been signed (with some bits left to work out). The discussion has naturally turned to whether this will aid Turkey's efforts to become a member of the EU. There is no direct influence on this (it has nothing to do with the chapters that need to be fulfilled before a nation can become a member) but in terms of stressing its strategic importance it could, and I'm also curious whether this will change anything in Austria, where anti-Turkey EU membership sentiment is highest:

As Austria is the country where the Nabucco pipeline will end.

Construction will start in 2011 and shipments in 2014. One big concern about Turkey joining the EU is the countries that border it, namely Iran, Iraq, and Syria, plus the Cyprus issue. There's also the frozen border with Armenia. Luckily these are all solvable problems - Iran, if we're lucky, may be able to overthrow their government and replace it with something better (in order to keep the system stable a Supreme Leader Montazeri and President Mousavi might be the best bet at the moment), Iraq is actually Kurdish Iraq along the border so Turkey can definitely solve this if they play their cards right, Syria seems to be open to better relations with the US, Cyprus is achievable, and Armenia and Turkey may somehow be able to normalize relations.

That's a lot on the agenda, but at least we're not dealing with completely unstable countries like North Korea - each of the countries listed above are solvable in some way.


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